


Back To Me

by joss_is_boss



Category: Glee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 14:07:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4022731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joss_is_boss/pseuds/joss_is_boss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a reason Rachel dresses and acts the way that she does, thanks to the support of her friends she is finally ready to tell everyone and get back to the real her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back To Me

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty AU after season 1 except Brittany never says that her and Santana sleep together. Coach Beiste is still the new football coach, but Matt never left.  
> Song is Warrior by Demi Lovato  
> I own nothing.

The glee club got a shock as they walked in to  the choir room. Most of them had spent the school day still in turkey coma state of minds after the long Thanksgiving weekend, but they were all snapped back to reality when they saw the entirety of the football team plus Coach Beiste and Mr. Schue taking up one half of their sacred space; which is what it had become to them, one room in the entire school where they could just be themselves, and it was being invaded.

Mercedes was the first to snap "Oh, hell to the no, Mr. Schue. What are they doing here?"

The teacher stood up and opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted.

"I asked Mr. Schue to invite them" said a voice from behind them.

Knowing whose voice that was they turned around to tell her off and stopped dead in their tracks. There in the doorway stood Rachel but she didn't look like Rachel, she was wearing slightly distressed skinny jeans, a very fashionable very cozy looking cream colored sweater, heeled dark brown booties,a red infinity scarf, and to top it all off her hair was up in a messy, but cute bun leaving her bangs to fall into her eyes.

Realizing what this meant four in the crowd were instantly pissed off, if Rachel was ready to explain what happened to her and she invited the football team that meant that the person responsible for so much pain was sitting just 10 feet away from them and they still couldn't do anything about it because they didn't know which of the douche-bag's it was. So with clenched jaws and fists the four of them went to find seats as far away from the football team as they could so they could avoid just beating the shit out of the first person they saw. 

Rachel shot them a smile as she started to make her way around the rest of the club, who had yet to stop staring at her. Puck couldn't stand it anymore, it was like they expected her to jump onto a table and curse them all or something. "Dudes, sit down, and let her say her piece."

Finally they turned to see Puck and the three Cheerios sitting there and, still stunned, made their way over to join them. Kurt got his voice back first, "Rachel what's going on? I'm not even going to go into your clothes right now, which I love by the way. You got the football team here but you haven't said anything yet and it's been like five minutes, which is weird in and of itself. Plus, it seems like Puck, Santana, Brittany, and Quinn already know what is going on which is freaking me out."

The four mentions scowled at that, hoping that Rachel would be comfortable enough after today to stop hiding. Rachel saw there scowls and sent them a smile, she knew what they were thinking, and she knew that she was finally strong enough to be who she really was.

"I'm sorry for making you wait Kurt, I wanted to give everyone a chance to get into their seats, now that you all are I can begin. Usually I would ignore your second question, but as it leads into what I have to say I will answer. Noah, Santana, Brittany, and Quinn seem to already know what is happening because they do. Everyone in this school seems to forget that the five of us were pretty much inseparable up through 8th grade."

She pauses a moment to give people a chance to remember, she can she as it clicks on each of their faces.

"We have not grown as far apart as you think, I have told you before that I am an actress, that I am a very good actress, well they might even be better than I am. It was my idea to hide our friendship, we were about begin high school and, for reasons that I will explain in a minute, I needed to be obscure, I needed to be as far from popular as I could. In the course of a day my plan went from trying out for the Cheerios with my best friends to buying the ugliest clothes that I could find in hopes of keeping people away. At first I tried to end our friendship for real, who would want to be friend with me I was dirty."

A feeling was starting to creep over most of the people in the room, a feeling that told them they did not want to hear the rest of this story. Rachel had tears in her eyes and so did the three Cheerios, that was enough to gather tears in the rest of the girls eyes, knowing that whatever was coming next was not good. It also hadn't escaped anyone's notice that Rachel had resolutely ignored the side of the room that the football players were on.

"At that point I could barely handle physical contact with my fathers, how was I supposed to handle how physically close our little group had always been."

She smiled at them again and they smiled back.

"But no matter how hard I pushed them away they wouldn't budge, the only reason they agreed to hide our friendship and to do the stuff that they do to me, which I also asked them to do, is because they knew that it was the only way to protect me until I was strong enough to face what had happened."

Pretty much everyone has figured out what happened to her, a lot of them are crying even the boys, waiting for her to actual say it. The only one who doesn't have even an inkling of a clue is Finn, who is wondering how he could have missed that his girlfriend (he still forgets the ex part) was friends with four of the most popular people in the school, including his (other) ex.

"I was 13, some of you don't know this but technically I am only supposed to be a sophomore right now, my dads convinced the school board to let me skip kindergarten. It was about two weeks before 9th grade started, it was try-out day, all five of us were here, Noah for football, and the four of us for Cheerios. I was trying out to be a flyer and I had a couple of hours to wait so I went to look at to look at the Auditorium. He must have followed me. I'm not going to go into the details here, I will have to do that enough later. After it happened I walked home and put my clothes into plastic bags that my fathers are right now taking to the police, along with pictures that I took of some of the bruises. That's not really why I am hear today though, for about the past three months I have finally been in a healthy relationship, where I can be myself and I don't feel like crying every time she touches me. She has helped me finish healing. So today I am hear to face him the best way that I know how. with a song."

As Brad begins to play the piano Rachel turns to face the football team for the first time and everyone's eyes follow hers, suddenly realizing what her four best friends had earlier, that the person who did such a horrible thing to such a kind person was in the room with them. For their part Mr. Schue and Coach Beiste look furious. Everyone is looking around trying to figure out which one did it. It's not hard to tell, he is the only one in the room glaring at Rachel. Santana is across the room before anyone can stop her, only to be pulled off of him by Puck. 

"Let go of me Puckerman, he raped her, I'm gonna kill him" she yelled struggling to get out of Puck's arms.

Puck wanted to kill him too, but he knew that Rachel had to get out whatever song she was gonna sing or she would never fully heal, so he said the only thing that he could think of that he knew would calm the fiery Latina down.  "Let your girl sing Santana." Then he led her back over to where Quinn was now holding Brittany.

Coach Beiste had moved to stand over Karofsky once Puck pulled Santana off of him as Mr. Schue went to call the police and Rachel's fathers.

Puck gave Brad a nod to restart the music once he was sure that no one else would interrupt.

 

 **This is a story that I have never told**  
**I gotta get this off my chest to let it go**  
**I need to take back the light inside you stole**  
**You're a criminal**  
**And you steal like you're a pro**  
  
**All the pain and the truth**  
**I wear like a battle wound**  
**So ashamed, so confused**  
**I was broken and bruised**  
  
**Now I'm a warrior**  
**Now I've got thicker skin**  
**I'm a warrior**  
**I'm stronger than I've ever been**  
**And my armor, is made of steel, you can't get in**  
**I'm a warrior**  
**And you can never hurt me again**  
  
**Out of the ashes, I'm burning like a fire**  
**You can save your apologies, you're nothing but a liar**  
**I've got shame, I've got scars**  
**That I will never show**  
**I'm a survivor**  
**In more ways than you know**  
  
**Cause all the pain and the truth**  
**I wear like a battle wound**  
**So ashamed, so confused**  
**I'm not broken or bruised**  
  
**'Cause now I'm a warrior**  
**Now I've got thicker skin**  
**I'm a warrior**  
**I'm stronger than I've ever been**  
**And my armor, is made of steel, you can't get in**  
**I'm a warrior**  
**And you can never hurt me**  
  
**There's a part of me I can't get back**  
**A little girl grew up too fast**  
**All it took was once, I'll never be the same**  
**Now I'm taking back my life today**  
**Nothing left that you can say**  
**Cause you are never gonna take the blame anyway**  
  
**Now I'm a warrior**  
**I've got thicker skin**  
**I'm a warrior**  
**I'm stronger than I've ever been**  
**And my armor, is made of steel, you can't get in**  
**I'm a warrior**  
**And you can never hurt me again**  
  
**No oh, yeah, yeah**  
  
**You can never hurt me again**

 

By the time the song ended their were tears streaming down everyone's faces, Karofsky just looked even angrier. Santana ran to wrap her arms around Rachel as Karofsky started talking.

"I'm gonna sue you for this Berry, it's bad enough that I have to look at you everyday, now you accuse me of something like this in front of a room full of my friends, with absolutely no proof."

Rachel's arms tightened around Santana, both to keep her in place and to gather some strength as she looked him in the eye for the first time in over two years.

"I am almost certain that I never said your name, in fact if we go back and watch the recordings from the cameras I set up around the room they will prove that I never outright accused any one person, I just said that that person was on the football team, they worked the rest out themselves. Besides, like I said earlier, the police probably already have my clothes from that day. I put them in air tight bags before I spent an hour scrubbing myself raw."

Karofsky is about to reply when Coach Beiste hauls him up by the arm and shoves him towards the door.

"Come on, you and I are gonna go wait outside now that the girl has gotten her say."

The rest of the people in the room just stay seated, not sure what to do, looking between the door Coach Beiste just led the apparent rapist Karofsky through and the middle of the room where Quinn, Brittany, and Puck have joined Santana and surrounded Rachel.

 


End file.
